Broomall’s Taylor Anderson throws the stone during a game at the Curling National Championships at IceWorks in Aston Tuesday. (Times staff / JULIA WILKINSON )

ASTON — Ann Swisshelm can still recall the first time she saw Sarah and Taylor Anderson curl.

A five-time national champion, two-time Olympian and one of the most decorated American female curlers, Swisshelm has seen plenty on the sheet. But the Andersons still stand out in her mind.

“I believe the first time I saw Sarah, she was 12, skipping at the Junior National Championships in Portage, Wis.,” Swisshelm recalled Wednesday afternoon at IceWorks. “She weighed about 80 pounds, not much more than a couple of rocks. And she’s had a tremendous amount of experience. It is unique to have someone that young be that talented, but Sarah has been skipping for most of her life now. So I don’t think that she’s a stranger to this environment at all.”

The environment for the Andersons this week is the 2014 Curling National Championships, where Sarah and Taylor, playing with older sisters Emily and Courtney, have turned heads. Heading into their final round-robin draw Wednesday night, they’ve accumulated a 3-5 record, including a 9-2 win Wednesday afternoon over Amy Lou Anderson’s rink despite Sarah being absent, falling victim to the flu bug wreaking havoc on the field. That’s unlikely to get them into the knockout round, but it’s an impressive debut on the national scene.

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Swisshelm has had a firsthand view of their performance this week in her capacity as a commentator for the Nationals’ online broadcast, Swisshelm’s first in the booth after 19 straight years competing in the event. She’s impressed by what she’s seen and is never hesitant to glowingly praise the accomplishments of the Andersons.

“They’re a great team,” she said. “And Sarah and Taylor obviously, they’re identical twins. They have a unique connection to begin with. Then you couple them with their sisters, and that is really a tremendously unique competition. It’s unfortunate that they’re been hit with the flu bug and a little bit of injuries, so they’ve struggled quite a bit, but I think this experience has been great for them. To get to play in their hometown in front of a very favorable crowd on excellent ice conditions and a really good environment, it’s going to do nothing but make them better and better.”

Curlers in their 20s aren’t exactly a rare sight at the event. For that matter, they weren’t at the Sochi Olympics either, with five of the 10 women’s curling squads led by women in their 20s.

Even against that youthful crowd, though, the Andersons manage to stand out. Curling at a high level at their age isn’t unheard of. But for a rink to have its skip, the decision-maker and shot-caller on the ice, and its vice skip still in high school is pretty remarkable.

The fact that they’ve held their own against some of American curling’s best — against competitors more than twice their age who have been curling longer than the Andersons have been alive — shows their mettle.

“I think they’re a really good team,” said Allison Pottinger, whose team won nationals in Aston in 2012 and is in the lead with a 7-1 record through eight draws. That record includes a tough 6-4 win in extra ends against the Andersons on the event’s opening day.

“I think it’s terrific that they’re here and playing at this event. It will only make them better. And they’re certainly holding their own. In most of their games, they’re right in there if not winning them.”

Swisshelm’s view of the Andersons, Sarah in particular, is more comprehensive than most. Fresh off a trip to the 2014 Olympics as the lead for Erika Brown’s rink, Swisshelm also played with Brown at the 2013 World Championships in Riga, Latvia, where the Americans took fourth place.

When it came time to choose an alternate for that tournament, Brown tabbed Sarah Anderson, a somewhat unorthodox pick at age 17, as the person to stand at the ready should injury, illness or poor form necessitate a substitution. Sarah Anderson was also the second alternate for the Olympics, behind Pottinger, though she wasn’t called into duty.

“It was probably kind of a unique decision for our team to pick a 17-year-old to go to the world championships with us,” Swisshelm said. “But Sarah exhibited maturity that was — I don’t want to say it was surprising; I don’t want to be disrespectful to Sarah — but she was an outstanding fifth. She fit right into our team. She’s more than a decade younger than all of us, multiple decades younger than me, and she fit right in great. We had a really good working relationship. She brought a lot to our team. We finished playing for a medal — unfortunately we didn’t get one — but I think in large part that was due to the presence of Sarah Anderson.”

The Anderson’s aren’t alone as youthful participants in the national championships. Four other teams are skipped by curlers in their 20s, the next youngest the rink of 20-year-old Abigayle Lindgren. But they’re the only ones this year — and a select group through the years — to participate in both the national and junior national championships, at which they placed second in February.

That youth bodes well for the future of American curling, and the women out on the sheet certainly recognize it.

“It’s terrific,” Pottinger said. “And I think it’s great for women’s curling. A lot of us aren’t going to be around forever, right? So what’s going to happen in four years? They’re going to have a lot of time to develop in four years.”